


Maybe Our Kind Don't Fit Round Here

by Rainne



Series: Let 'Em Come [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: M/M, Pre-CATFA, Time Travel, inverse shrinkyclinks, porn that grew plot, post-CATWS
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-10
Updated: 2015-01-10
Packaged: 2018-03-06 23:04:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,869
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3151649
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rainne/pseuds/Rainne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I don't know what happened to me, Steve, but I know damn well that whatever I am now ain't no good for you.  You're b - "</p>
<p>"I swear to God, Bucky," Steve interrupts, his voice low and even, but tense all the same, "if you say the words <i>better off without me</i> I don't care what else happens, I will beat the everloving shit out of you."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Maybe Our Kind Don't Fit Round Here

**Author's Note:**

> This is the inverse fic to suzukiblu's [if the bad times are coming let 'em come](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3150752). The two fics absolutely should be read in tandem.
> 
> It grew a plot, guys. It was not supposed to grow a plot.

"Bucky?" a voice says, soft and tentative and a little wavery, and when he turns around, he gapes in awe and not a little fear.

"S-Stevie?" he manages, and it's Steve, of course it's Steve, that's Steve's voice and Steve's eyes and Steve's big beak and Steve's stupid ears but... but... whose square jaw is that, and where did those shoulders come from, and how did he get so _tall_?

"Bucky, how - how did you - ?"

He shakes his head, still staring in shock.  "Pal, I think I'm the one that oughta be askin' you that!" 

"Will... will you come inside?"

Bucky turns and looks up at the brick-fronted row house.  "This ain't your place," he says simply.

"Not... not the old place, no," Steve admits.  "This is my new place."  He pauses, then gives a soft, strangled laugh that totally lacks humor.  "I've got the top two floors.  Three bedrooms and two baths and a powder room, and a kitchen you could swing a cat in."

"Yeah?"  Bucky looks up at the massive windows on the second and third floors of the house.  "Two baths _and_ a powder room, huh?  You get that along with them shoulders and all?"

"God, Bucky," Steve moans.  "I don't know what's going on, but I just... please... please come inside."

"I don't know either, pal," Bucky replies, "but I guess I might as well.  Don't suppose you've got a coffee percolator on your big fancy stove in your big fancy apartment, have you?"

The laugh that escapes Steve this time is more than a little wet.  "Bucky," he says, "I'm about to make you the best cup of coffee you ever had in your life."

They never quite get to that cup of coffee; Bucky barely even gets Steve inside the apartment before his hands are on Steve.  "I want to see," he breathes.  "What _happened_ to you?"

"I joined the Army," Steve says, and Bucky feels hysterical laughter rising up inside him and has to bite it back.  Steve pulls off the undershirt he's wearing (in public, even!) and Bucky's own hands fall to the buttons of his blue jeans.  "Bucky - "

"Shut up," Bucky growls.  "Jesus Christ, Rogers, I leave you alone for ten fucking minutes to go to the damn corner store and before I can even get there the whole fucking world changes and now you're this monster and just _shut up,_ will you?"

"Yes, sir," Steve replies, and Bucky growls again, snatching at the denim to make it go away.

"Jesus Christ," Bucky breathes, taking in the massive muscles of Steve's thighs, the firm, stark outlines of his pectorals, and the obvious bulge underneath the maroon-colored underpants.  "Jesus _Christ._ "

"You keep sayin' that," Steve murmurs, "like you're tryin' to get his attention."

And Bucky is _on him_ , the little smart-assed punk, he might be a foot and a half taller and a hundred pounds heavier but he's still Bucky's little smart-assed punk, and goddamn if Bucky Barnes is gonna let Steve Rogers sass him like that and get away with it.  And he'd been afraid - he doesn't want to admit it, but part of him deep inside was _afraid_ because he had just been walking up the sidewalk and suddenly he was in a new Brooklyn with new building-fronts (though the buildings looked the same) and new people and new cars and a new _Steve_ -

But he smelled the same, tasted the same, sounded the same, and when Bucky got his hand around Steve's cock, he even made the same squeak of surprise that he always made.  " _Christ, Bucky_ \- "

But Bucky wasn't listening; he was too busy shrugging his suspenders off his shoulders while Steve fumbled with the buttons of his shirt and he did wonder, very briefly, why Steve's hand went to his left arm and shoulder before anything else but it didn't matter because " _Steve._ "

Steve's huge hands wrap around Bucky's face, holding him still, and Steve's tongue plunders Bucky's mouth until Bucky whimpers, his hips rolling against Steve's and his erection tenting the fabric of his work pants.  He releases Bucky's mouth for just a moment - only long enough to say, "We need to go upstairs; all my supplies are up there."

Bucky pauses, blinking up at him in confusion.  "Supplies?" he repeats, feeling stupid, and then he realizes.  " _Oh,_ " he says, laughing.  "Stevie, you coulda just said that's where the Vaseline is."

And Steve laughs back at him.  "Oh, Bucky," he says.  "I've got something _way_ better than Vaseline."  He takes Bucky's hand then and tugs him toward the corner of the room, where a fancy spiral staircase leads up to the second floor of the apartment. 

Bucky lets Steve go first, out of habit, and then blinks at the sight when he reaches the top of the stairs.  The space here is wide and open, lit from the east and the south, and has been clearly set up as Steve's art studio.  There's even a huge canvas on an easel, and Bucky can't help but drift toward it to look at the half-finished portrait there.

The man depicted there in spare charcoal lines is clearly Bucky himself - he knows what he looks like, after all - but what Bucky sees in his own half-drawn face is... well, to call it _upsetting_ would be to vastly understate the matter.  It's damn near traumatizing, is what it is.  The expression on his face is terrible, blank and cold and dead, and his left arm...

Bucky's hand drifts up to grip at his own left shoulder, feeling the reassuring softness of flesh there, and not the unforgiving metal plates he sees drawn in Steve's bold lines.  He reaches out with his left hand and touches the star on the image's shoulder.  "Stevie," he whispers, "what happened to _me_?"

"I don't know," Steve admits, his voice low and cracked.  "Not everything.  And what I do know... I think it's maybe better if I don't tell you."

Bucky thinks about that.  He thinks about where he is and who he's with and how very, very _different_ things suddenly are and he says, "I... think you might be right about that.  Maybe... maybe I shouldn't oughta know."

Steve puts his big, warm hands on Bucky's shoulders and leans down, touching his lips to the side of Bucky's neck.  "It doesn't matter," he says softly, his voice nothing more than a breath across Bucky's skin.  "You're here now."

"Yeah," Bucky replies, tearing his eyes away from the canvas.  "S'pose I am."  He looks around.  "So, you gonna show me around this place?  Three bedrooms an' all, betcha you got you a big fancy car, too, yeah?  One of them snazzy new Buicks with the whitewall tires?"

Steve laughs.  "Nah," he says, tossing his arm around Bucky's shoulders the way Bucky always used to do to _him._   "I got a motorcycle.  Easier to park in Brooklyn, you know?  I'm the end of the row; I got street access out the back."  He leads Bucky down the hallway and into a bedroom that, by Bucky's standards, could house a whole family of Irish immigrants.  Bucky follows Steve to the window and looks down; sure enough, in the tiny patch of ground between the back of Steve's building and the back of the next building, there sits the shape of a big, fat motorcycle under a black cover.

"Damn, Stevie," Bucky says, shaking his head.  "Look at you."  He looks around the room.  It is furnished sparsely: a huge bed dominates the room, one made of heavy, dark wood and covered with a neat gray comforter.  A matching bedside table stands on each side of the bed, and a matching chest of drawers stands against the near wall.  The far wall boasts two doors; one of these stands partway open, and Bucky can see that it leads into a closet.  The other door, when he goes and looks, leads into a small but well-appointed bathroom. 

He stands in the bathroom doorway for a long moment, staring into it.  The left-hand wall is all mirrors above the granite-topped double vanity; the right-hand wall is all tile inside the glass-walled shower.  There's a commode in the middle, the fancy kind that flushes with water and refills itself without a trip to the pump, and Bucky turns back to Steve, shaking his head.  "Jesus _Christ,_ Stevie," he says again.

Steve, in those maroon underpants, has folded the bedcover back, and is sitting on the side of the mattress, leaning back with his palms braced against the plain white sheets and his legs, those long, amazing _legs,_ stretched out in front of him, his ankles crossed.  He looks unbearably _casual,_ like he does this all the time.

Maybe he does.  The thought makes Bucky's brain burn.

He turns and stalks toward Steve, intent on his face.  Steve sits up, just a little bit, but Bucky grabs him by the shoulder and shoves him backward.  "You do this all the time, Stevie?" he asks, his voice low and dangerous.  "You bring fellows in here, show 'em off how rich you are, how you got all this fancy stuff?  Indoor privy an' all?"

"Nah, Buck," Steve replies, a smile playing on his lips.  "Never brought a fellow up here before."

Bucky straddles Steve's legs, the insides of his knees brushing the outsides of Steve's thighs through his heavy dungarees.  "No?  Dames, then, is it?  You got a bunch of 'em on a string, yeah?  Hell, you got three bedrooms, you ain't even got to worry whether or not the blonde one might find a brown hair on the pillow, huh?"

But Steve shakes his head.  "Nah, Buck," he says again.  "Never brought a dame up here, neither."

"Why the fuck _not?_ " Bucky demands, suddenly frustrated.  " _Fuck,_ Stevie, why ain't you got dames or fellows in and out of here on a nightly basis?  _Look at you!_   You could have anybody you _wanted!_ "

"I got who I want," he replies.  "Right here." And that patient, sainted expression makes Bucky seriously want to break his fucking _face._

"Bullshit," Bucky snarls.  "I saw that picture.  I ain't _shit_ for you right now, and you know it.  _Look at you,_ " he says again, stepping back and gesturing to Steve's changed form.  "You got all... all... _better_.  I bet you ain't sick no more or nothin'.  But me..."  He gestures toward the door, and by extension to the half-drawn portrait down the hall.  "I don't know what happened to me, Steve, but I know damn well that whatever I am now ain't no good for you.  You're b - "

"I swear to God, Bucky," Steve interrupts, his voice low and even, but tense all the same, "if you say the words _better off without me_ I don't care what else happens, I will beat the everloving shit out of you."

Bucky swallows the words.  In the past, it would've been an idle threat, but he's pretty sure this new and improved Steve Rogers could carry through.  Steve unfolds himself and stands up, moving forward and crowding Bucky up against the wall.  "What happened to you was not your fault, Bucky," he says softly.  "And I don't care about it.  I don't care about any of it.  You are _mine_ and I am not letting you go.  Do you understand me?"

Bucky nods slowly, unable to speak.

Steve's hands cup his face.  "If you remember nothing else, ever, I want you to remember this.  _I love you._   You are _mine,_ and I love you, and I will _always come back for you._   No matter _what._   Is that clear?"

Bucky swallows hard and nods again.

Steve whispers "Good," against Bucky's lips, and then all conscious thought is lost because Steve is devouring him.  Bucky whines into Steve's mouth, and Steve laughs softly against his cheek, his breath hot and wet, and then Steve's hands are on Bucky's hips, his nimble fingers flicking at the waist of Bucky's pants until the canvas falls away onto the floor. 

Steve's hands slide under the elastic band of Bucky's boxer shorts and Bucky groans softly, shuddering hard and leaning back against the wall.  But Steve doesn't leave him there for long; he uses his other hand to pull Bucky's shorts down and off, and then he goes to his knees in front of Bucky, licking his lips and grinning lasciviously.

"Jesus _Christ,_ Stevie," Bucky says, feeling a little bit like a record with a heavy scratch.  "You look like a goddamn fallen angel down there."

Steve just chuckles darkly.  "Hey, Bucky," he says, "wanna see how good they fixed my lungs?"

And Bucky doesn't even have time to say " _What?_ " before Steve's mouth is on him, hot and wet and perfect, and Bucky cries out, his hips jerking and his head falling back against the wall.  His hands go to the top of Steve's head, his fingers threading through Steve's too-short hair, and he whines, honest to God _whines_ when the tip of Steve's tongue starts playing with the edge of his foreskin.

"Stevie, _Christ,_ Stevie, baby, oh my God, it's so good."  He's babbling, he knows he's babbling, but he can't help it, Steve's mouth is so perfect and amazing, and Steve's tongue, and Steve's lips and teeth, and Steve's not wheezing, not even a little bit, and Bucky cries out and comes in Steve's mouth.

Steve swallows around Bucky's cock, then looks up at Bucky and grins, wiping at his mouth with the back of his hand.  "That's one," he says softly.

Bucky groans.

Steve laughs softly.  "Let's see how many more you can give me before you beg for mercy."

Bucky _whimpers._

Steve lays him out on the bed then, and works him over with his hands and his mouth, and _Christ_ but that mouth ought to be registered as some kind of weapon, both for the things he can do with it and the things that come out of it.  He's got Bucky half-hard again by the time he gets from Bucky's mouth to about halfway down his chest, and by the time he nuzzles in under Bucky's cock and takes one of Bucky's balls in his mouth, Bucky's near to crying with how goddamn _good_ it feels.

And Stevie, Mary and Joseph but Stevie ain't nowhere close to being done with him.

Steve makes him come again just like that, with nothing more than his mouth and his hands, and then the real agony starts, because when Steve opens the drawer in the bedside table, Bucky is expecting to see the familiar glass jar of petroleum jelly, but he doesn't.  Instead, Steve has a tube of something that Bucky can't see. 

He opens it with a _snap_ and squeezes some of it out onto his fingers and Bucky knows this part - he knows it well.  This part is, he has often said, his very very favorite.  He spreads his legs wide, raising one knee up to grant Steve better access, and Steve grins at him, reaching down between his legs.  His fingertip brushes once, slick and wet, against Bucky's hole, and Bucky jumps slightly and then groans, his eyes fluttering shut.

Steve takes his time, stroking and teasing Bucky's entrance, as Bucky slowly comes to the realization that the warmth he's feeling isn't all about his arousal.  "Steve," he says, his eyes opening and brow furrowing in confusion, "that's..."

"Warm, I know," Steve replies.  He grins down into Bucky's confused face and _pushes_ , sinking his first finger into Bucky's ass all the way to the knuckle.  Bucky's entire body rises up off the bed as Steve says, "The future has all kinds of really great things.  Like this stuff, for example.  It's not like Vaseline; it's made for exactly what we're usin' it for."

Bucky's eyes go wide.  "They make special slick for sex now?"

Steve nods, slowly sliding his finger in and out of Bucky's body, easing the way, before pushing a second finger in with the first.  "They sure do.  They even market it to queers now, on account of it ain't illegal no more."

Bucky's eyes had fallen shut again, but now they spring wide open.  "You're fulla shit."

"I ain't either," Steve replies.  "I'm tellin' you, Buck, and may God strike me dead if I'm lyin'.  It's legal.  It's even mostly accepted.  Two fellas or two dames can even get _married_ in almost the whole country, and they're fightin' in court to make it happen all the way around."

Bucky very nearly loses the plot at this revelation.  Queers can get married to each other now?  The future is _amazing._   He opens his mouth to ask Steve something about it, but then Steve adds a _third_ finger and the warmth gets warmer and the only thing that comes out of his mouth is a tiny, soft squeak. 

Steve chuckles.  "Right.  Sorry, I got distracted.  I was tellin' you about the lube.  It's got something in it that makes it get warm, see?  I usually use it when I'm by myself, you know?  But I knew it'd be somethin' you'd like.  I'll have to use it on your cock later, so you see what I mean."

Bucky shudders hard.  "Stevie," he manages to say.  "Stevie, _please..._ "

And Steve chuckles, dark and low and filthy, and he slides his fingers out of Bucky, making Bucky whine and writhe a little bit with loss.  And then Steve is squirting more slick out of the tube onto his fingers, and then he's coating his cock with it, and Bucky rolls over underneath him and pushes himself up onto his hands and knees, and Steve slides in between Bucky's thighs and lines himself up just right.

There's pressure, and then the first sweet stretch, like burning, and then there's just _Steve,_ filling him up so good, holding him down and stretching him out and making the rest of the world just fall away - it's just Steve now, everything is Steve and the hot, thick slide of Steve's cock burying itself deep inside him. 

Bucky swears, his fingers digging into the thick, soft top of the mattress.  "Jesus _Christ,_ " he says when he can breathe again.  "Whatever they did to the rest of you worked there, too, didn't it?"

And Steve, the bastard, grips Bucky's hips and _grinds._   "Yeah," he admits.  "It did.  Added length _and_ girth." 

Bucky puts one hand back, gripping Steve's hip and holding him still for a long moment, feeling the burn deep inside of him as his body stretches to accommodate Steve's cock.  It's delicious, sweet and hot and just skating along the knife's edge of pain, and he wants more of it; he wants everything Steve will give him.  He swears softly once more, just a breath starting with the soft fricative but trailing off into silence along the vowel, before reaching the stop.  Steve grinds again, and Bucky flat-out _whimpers._   "Steve," he manages.  "Steve, _please._ "

Slowly, so slowly that it's almost agony, Steve pulls back until only the fat head of his cock remains inside Bucky's body; Bucky keens, and Steve slowly presses back in, filling him up and whispering about how good it feels, how sweet it is, how gorgeous Bucky looks underneath him.  He's clearly fighting against his own urges, the kind of self-control he never had as a kid gripping down on himself so hard that his hands are trembling even as they slide up and down Bucky's back. 

Bucky groans, resetting his grip on the thick mattress, and he says, "Come on, Stevie, lemme see what this fancy new body can do.  _Fuck me._ "

Steve groans softly, low in his chest.  Then he reaches down and grips the inside of Bucky's knee, shifting it out slightly into a wider stance.  His hand slides up Bucky's thigh to meet the other at Bucky's hips, and then they both glide up the outsides of his ribs to cup his pectoral muscles and lift.  "Come here," Steve murmurs, and he pulls Bucky upright.  "Lean against me."

And Bucky does, he leans back against Steve's chest, ignoring the way this new position makes him feel exposed and impaled, ignoring the way it leaves him shamelessly available to Steve's hungry gaze, ignoring everything except the way Steve's body feels against his back, Steve's hands on his skin, Steve's arms wrapping around his torso, Steve's cock buried in his ass.  And then Steve starts to move again, slow at first, but then his rhythm starts to build, faster and harder, until he's slamming into Bucky and Bucky is crying out, his cock hard and purple and leaking all over the sheets, and his head lolls back on Steve's shoulder as Steve pounds into him and Bucky comes untouched, his semen spurting out of him and pattering onto the sheets.

Steve buries his face in the crook of Bucky's neck and comes as well, his hips jerking, soft cries sounding like they're being ripped out of him with every gush of seed.

Bucky feels himself go limp, filled with Steve, surrounded by Steve, and he groans softly as Steve lowers him to the bed, carefully avoiding the wet spots.  He's still hard.  "Jesus, Stevie," Bucky moans.  "How are you still - "

"Shh," Steve whispers, bracing himself above Bucky's body.  "Just relax."  There is a soft snap, and Steve pulls out enough to apply more slick to himself, and then he pushes back in again.  "Just relax," he whispers again.

Bucky groans, but he pulls his knees up underneath him to give Steve a better angle for thrusting.  "Hell yeah," he murmurs.  "Fuck me, Steve, _use_ me, _do it._ "

Steve groans, stretching himself out over Bucky, and starts to thrust again, slowly this time, his hips rolling instead of pounding, and Bucky whines and whimpers and writhes under Steve. It's so good, _so good,_ he wants to come again, he wants to be hard again, to give Steve everything he has, everything he is.  It doesn't take long, though, and Steve is coming again, filling him up, his soft cries echoing in Bucky's ears.  And this time, when he is done, he slumps to the side.

Bucky rolls with him, his hand flying back to grip Steve's hip again and hold him close.  "Stay in me," he murmurs, pressing back against Steve's body.  "Feels good like that."

"Long as I can," Steve promises, tugging Bucky flush up against him and holding him tight. 

When Bucky wakes, the sun is going down and there is a telephone ringing somewhere in the distance, but it doesn't sound right.  He isn't in his own bed, either; his cot was never this soft or warm, and there sure as hell isn't a snoring furnace in it.  He blinks his eyes open and sees the huge windows and the skyline outside and he remembers.

He shifts, feeling gross and sticky, and elbows Steve gently in the stomach.  "Hey, punk.  Wake up.  Phone's ringing."

"Ugh."  Steve groans softly, rolling onto his back.  The phone stops ringing.  Steve blinks up at Bucky for a long moment like he's some kind of miracle or something, and then pushes himself into a sitting position.  "Shower," Steve says.  "Definitely shower."

"With you on that one, pal," Bucky replies, poking at an itchy patch of dried semen on his stomach. 

From a distance, a man's voice begins shouting over and over again: "Steve!  Steve!  Steve!  Steve!"

Bucky flinches.  "What the hell, Steve?" he demands.  "Who is that?"

"Oh, God," Steve groans, rubbing at his face.   "That's Tony."  He pauses, taking in Bucky's expression, and adds, "It's the telephone.  He's not actually here."

"The _telephone?_ " Bucky repeats.  " _How?!_ "

"Phones in the future," Steve says simply.  "I'll explain after I get rid of him.  If I don't answer, he'll just keep calling.  Or worse, he'll show up."  He rolls off the bed.  "Start the shower; I'll join you in a second."  Naked as the day he was born (and considerably bigger), Steve strides out of the bedroom.  Bucky hears him hit the stairs and, shaking his head, goes into the bathroom to start the shower.

The shower is fancy and newfangled and all, but Bucky's a bright boy, and it only takes him a second to work out how the tap works.  He starts it running, even figures out how to get it to run hot, and then moves to the commode to relieve himself.  By the time Steve returns, he's luxuriating behind the glass wall under a seemingly neverending spray of hot water that pounds against muscles sore from his day's work and from his other, more pleasurable activities. 

Steve tosses a small black rectangle onto the bathroom counter when he enters, and he steps into the shower stall with Bucky, ducking under the water to wet himself.  "Okay, so, you know that guy Howard Stark?  Owns Stark Industries, invents things?"

"Yeah, yeah, I heard of him," Bucky says.  "He's pretty big time."

"Yeah.  Well, Tony's his son.  Tony Stark.  And he's even more of a genius than his Pops was.  I, uh.  I work with him now."

Bucky, who has been investigating the bottles labeled _body wash_ and _shampoo_ and _conditioner,_ turns and looks over his shoulder at Steve.  "Doin' what?"

Steve takes a deep breath.  "All right," he says.  "Let me explain.  And don't punch me 'til I'm done, okay?"

By the time he's done explaining - about the war and the serum and Project Rebirth and the Nazis and Howard Stark - they are done with their shower, and both of them are in the kitchen, dressed in undershirts and sweatpants.  Steve is frying bacon at the stove, and Bucky is peeling potatoes at the sink and resisting the urge to cram one of them down Steve's stupid throat.  He lets Steve get the whole story out, though, as promised.  Once Steve's done, though, he shakes his head.  "You're a goddamn idiot," he says simply.

"Yeah, you said as much to me the first time I told you this story," Steve admits.

Bucky shakes his head.  "Well, it ain't happened for me yet," he says.  "I guess that's all still in the future."  He pauses.  "I... guess since we're here and all, we at least win the war?"

"Yeah, we win," Steve replies.  He shakes his head, looking away for a minute.  When he turns back again, he looks wrecked.  "We win," he says again.  "But the cost..."

Bucky thinks about that half-drawn portrait upstairs.  "I'm guessin' somethin' pretty rough happens to me."

Steve chews his bottom lip for a moment.  "I don't know how much I can tell you, Buck," he finally says.  "I'm afraid to.  What if I tell you, and you go back, and you try to change things, and it makes it worse?  As it stands, at least you're alive.  If I tell you, and you change things, you might die.  Then where does that leave me?"

"Right here, just like now," Bucky replies, his voice surprisingly even.  "Only makin' new friends, like."

Steve shakes his head, unashamedly wiping at his eyes with the back of his wrist.  "Doesn't work that way, Buck," he says softly.  "The first time I thought you were dead, I put a plane down in the fucking Arctic.  And when I woke up and I found out I wasn't dead after all?"  He shakes his head again.

That explains that, Bucky thinks.  He drops everything in his hands and turns to Steve, grabbing him around the shoulders.  "Not again," he says simply.  "I ain't worth your life, Steve.  You hear me?"

"I hear you," Steve replies softly.  "And it's a no go.  You thought I was worth yours; well, equals goes both ways."

Bucky is gearing up to argue with him about it when there's a knock at the door.  Steve sighs.  "I told him not to come today."  He pushes the frying pan into Bucky's hands and goes to the door, pulling it open. 

A man with dark hair and a Vandyke beard enters the apartment, talking a mile a minute - it sounds like he's complaining about someone called Richards, and also about having to come all the way out to Brooklyn from Midtown at this hour of night.  Since the sun has only just set, Bucky has little sympathy.

Steve comes back into the kitchen.  "Buck," he says, "This is Tony Stark.  Tony, my best friend Bucky Barnes."

Bucky gives Tony a genial sort of wave - the best he can manage with a frying pan in his left hand and a set of tongs in his right.  "Howyadoin."

Tony studies him.  "Interesting," he says.  "I thought Romanov said he had a metal arm."

"This version does not," Steve replies.

"Do we have any idea what happened to the one that does?"

Steve shakes his head.  "Not a clue."

"Huh."  Stark pulls a small glasslike square out of his jacket pocket and points it at Bucky.  Bucky glares.  Stark ignores him, studying the square.  And then he says, "Oh, damn."

"What?" Steve and Bucky both ask at the same time.

"That explains that," Stark says.  "I was wondering, Cap.  Why you wouldn't remember losing your BFF for awhile, why you wouldn't remember him coming back with stories about being in the future, all those things you wonder when it comes to time travel.  Turns out, this isn't time travel.  See these markers here?"  He points at something on the glass.  "That's - well, call it a vibrational frequency.  Every single atom that originates in this universe vibrates to that frequency.  That's how you know if something came from this universe."  He pokes something on the glass, and the little square beeps, and he adds, "Or not."

Steve looks up at Bucky, an expression of shock on his face.  "Oh," he says softly.  "Well."

In short order, Bucky is dressed - and what a joke, right? Because now _Steve's_ clothes are a little too big for _Bucky_ \- and out the door, and riding in the back seat of Tony Stark's very shiny car across the Brooklyn Bridge and into midtown traffic.  It takes them a long damn time to get to Stark Tower, which is fine with Bucky because it gives him time to gawk at the city.  It's the same; he can see the skeleton of Manhattan-that-was underneath the overlay of all the new, but _man_ is it different.  They tell him that it's 2014, he ought to be almost a hundred years old, but he's barely twenty-one and this crazy new world is amazing to him.

The Tower is, too: it's full of technology that Bucky has only seen in science fiction magazines.  The building talks - Stark calls it JARVIS - and there are robots in the lab, and Tony's got these amazing suits and he promises to let Bucky try one out sometime.  There are other people at the Tower, too: Bruce Banner is introduced to Bucky as a biochemist and another teammate of Steve's, Jane Foster as the resident astrophysicist - and ain't that a job, for a pretty dame! - and Reed Richards as the world's foremost expert on interdimensional travel. 

They all poke at him a little bit, scanning him with machines and studying the readouts, talking seriously amongst each other and asking him random questions about history, politics, the economy, his family, and so on.  He answers them all as well as he knows how, and some of them elicit interesting responses from Steve.  Like, for example, when he mentions that his Pops owns a cardboard factory and is teaching Bucky the business; Steve shakes his head.  "Your Pops owned a doll factory," he says.    Or when he gives the names of his sisters as Becca, Margaret Mary, and Rose; Steve says they were Becca, Mary Margaret, and Constance.  All the big stuff is the same - things like the crash, who's the President, and that kind of stuff - but the details are different.  Like the President's name, for example.  He's still FDR, but according to Steve, his middle name was _Delano_ rather than _Delany._  

"It's actually not all that unexpected," Richards says, and his tone indicates that he's gearing up for a long lecture on the differences between dimensions.  "There are thousands of universes out there that are different from our own only in very tiny details - details we might not even know about.  For example, if a young woman in Idaho gives birth to a son today and names him Charles, in our universe he might grow up being called Charlie, and in another universe he might be called Chuck.  In yet another, he might be called Charles.  And those might be absolutely the only differences between the three universes."

"Well, that sounds... boring," Bucky admits.  "I was kinda hopin' for, I dunno, aliens or somethin'."

Steve laughs.  "We get those on occasion," he says.  "They're not that great."

"Okay, but the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question is this," Banner interjects.  "Can we send him home?"

And Richards shakes his head.  "According to what I can tell from my readings, it looks like a random brush-and-swap."  He pauses.  "What that means is that our universe and his universe converged for a split second, and he and his counterpart from this universe - that is to say, Sergeant Barnes as you last saw him - were in the same place at the same time.  In that instant, they were switched, but the universes have since deconverged.  There's no way of switching them back again without being able to know exactly which universe he came from, and exactly where and when the next convergence will happen, and making sure _both_ versions of him are in exactly the right place at exactly the right time."

Steve looks devastated.  "So the other Bucky is just... gone."

"Hey, don't worry about it," Bucky says.  "You're there.  You know?  My Stevie, he'll take care of your Bucky.  You know that."

Steve swallows hard.  "I hope you're right, Buck," he says.  "The last time I saw you - I mean, him - he was... very different."

"Yeah, and if I know you, that'll just make you more determined to take good care of him."  Bucky shakes his head.  "I ain't worried about them.  They'll be okay."  And that's not exactly true, per se, but it'll have to do.  It ain't like he can change things.  There ain't no going home now.  For a moment, he feels as devastated as Steve looked earlier.

Then he throttles the feeling, shoves it down deep.  Later, he'll deal with that.  Later, he'll deal with never seeing his Ma or his Pops or his sisters again; he'll come to terms with this huge new Steve with the deep sadness behind his eyes; he'll grow accustomed to this changed New York, the fancier new Brooklyn.  For now, though...

He looks down at himself, then up at Steve.  "Hey, Moneybags.  Any chance you can spot me a fiver, let me go down to Macy's and pick me up a set of clothes that actually fits?"

And Steve bursts out laughing.  "Yeah, Buck," he says.  "We can get you some clothes that'll fit you right.  But before we go, we're gonna have to have a quick talk about inflation."


End file.
